Ekspress Grupp profit grew by 50% in 2012

The concern's head Gunnar Kobin wrote in the annual report
that despite the setbacks that hit the advertising market in the 2nd half of
the year, it was a solid year of growth for the group. he added that improved
financial mainly derived from restructuring activities carried out in prior
years which had a major economic effect. In addition to successful business
operations, net profit growth was also greatly impacted by the agreement to
refinance the group’s loans concluded in mid-year which considerably reduced
the group’s interest expenses.

In 2012, the group’s sales increased
by 4% and totalled 59.7 million euros.

EBITDA increased by 14% in a year,
totalling EUR 7.9 million.

In a year, the share of the online
media segment in non-group sales increased from 15% to 17%, and the share of
EBITDA from 18% to 20%. The share of the periodicals segment in sales has
decreased from 42% to 40%, but the share in EBITDA has increased from 7% to
10%. The share of the printing services segment has remained unchanged and
makes up 43% of sales while the share of EBITDA has decreased from 75% to 70%.
These changes are attributable to continued strong online sales and also to
improved profitability of the periodicals segment, Kobin said.

Kobin noted about this year that
most likely the fall of sales revenues of printed media will fall but that of
web media will increase.

Two forums to shape the Baltic Sea regional future One Forum is aimed at revealing the EU strategy for the Baltic Sea region up to 2030; another assembles high-level decision-makers from business, politics, academia and media to figure out some practical steps for implementing a “futurist strategy”. The former is gathering for the 7th time, the latter for the 18th; both are taking place this week in Stockholm, Sweden